Notes for: John Figures Vigars

The baptism of John's son Edward in April 1612 at Lamerton Parish Church is as far back as we have got in the story of the Vigars of Lamerton. The Parish Registers at this time are in a poor condition but may reward further research. However, the Pre-1754 Marriage Index for Lamerton (by Mike Brown, Dartmoor Press) reveals no more. He also found them difficult to decipher! There is an earlier marriage listed of John Vigures to Blanch Hamlyn in November 1573. This could not be the marriage that produced this family, although John may have remarried. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, it is John's parents. A Jhon (or Joan) Figures widow(er) was buried in September 1615. A Stephyn Vigures [#1415] who marries Grace Cole in October 1601 is a possible brother of John. Florence Lily "Nink" Vigars (1902-1994) was the oldest living member of the family when we began our research. She gave us both good and misleading information about the previous generation which enabled us to commence our search. She also repeated what she claimed to have heard said about the origins of the Vigars family in Devon. The tale she heard was that the Vigars were descended from a man washed ashore from the wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588. This unlikely story is patently not historical but romantic imagination based around the foreign sound of the name. As we see above there was the marriage of a Vigures at Lamerton in 1573 predating the Armada in 1588. Furthermore, the name and its many variants seem to originate in several places in England and there are examples going back to the 1200s. The Dictionary of British Surnames by P.H.Reaney (Routledge & Kegan Paul 1958) has the following entry: "Vigars, Vigers, Viggars, Viggers, Vigors, Vigours, Vigrass, Vigurs, Vigus: Walter le Vigrus 1221 AssWo; Henry Vigrus 1256 AssSo; Hugh Vigeros 1275 SRWo; William Vigerus 1279 RH (0); William Vigerous 1305 LLB B; Lewis Vigures 1598 Oxon (D); Samuel Vigars 1746 Bardsley. AFr vigrus, OFr vigoro(u)s 'hardy, lusty, strong'. " This would make the name one from a personal characterisic rather than place, occupation or relationship. However, a correspondent, Jeanne Kellow, wrote the following, "As for the origins of the name, I was talking to a Genealogy teacher yesterday, and she showed me a list of William the Conqueror's followers, who sailed over with him in 1066. Two were brothers, called De Fougeres. She reckons that Fugars and Vigars etc all come from them. I suppose that trying to pronounce that in Devon, you're bound to come up with something rather different." The origins of this surname, like all others, will remain conjecture unless a definite connection is traced. The variants of the name are so widespread throughout England and at such early dates that mutiple origins seem most likely. The romance about the Armada, however, is not just a one off invention as W G Hoskins relates: "The number of Celtic names to survive in Devon is few indeed; but it is probable that the number of Celtic settlements that continued an unbroken life into the Saxon period and so down to the present day is considerably greater than the evidence of place-names alone would indicate. There is, above all, the evidence of the predominant physical types one finds among the native Devonian population to-day, a high proportion of whom clearly reveal a pre-Saxon ancestry. On the coasts of Devon there may be several coastal patches with dark and broadheaded, stalwart men, who are found also in nearly all the Cornish fishing harbours. Popular belief derives these very Mediterranean-looking people from marriages between Spanish survivors of the Armada, wrecked on the shores of south-western England in 1588, and the native Devon women. This belief may be dismissed at once, but it is correct in so far as it recognises the Mediterranean origin of these coastal types. They are most probably the descendants of the Iberian migrants who brought the Megalithic culture to Western Britain and who traded for Irish gold in the early Bronze Age. Such groups, in formerly isolated clefts in the south-western coast, tended to inter-marry and to perpetuate their type, a notable example in Devon being the hamlet of Bucks Mill, between Clovelly and Appledore, where nearly everybody was said, not so long ago, to be called Braund. Around Dartmouth, too, there is a notably dark type of Iberian ancestry. Other pre-Saxon types abound on the fringes of Dartmoor, short, dark long-heads." (page 47-8 A New Survey of England: Devon 1972 David & Charles) "Nink" Vigars also mentioned that there was a "Bishop Vigars". This appears to have been Bartholomew Vigers, son of Urbanus & Katherine, baptised on 18th February 1643 at Bishops Tawton, North Devon (IGI). He became from 1691 until 1721 Bishop of Ferns & Leighlin in County Wexford, Ireland. From his father the Anglo-Irish family of Vigors are descended. (see Burke's Irish Family Records) There is no evidence of a connection to the Lamerton family, indeed, they appear to have been of a higher social class. By the late 1700s the Lamerton Vigars were tenant farmers resident in North Brentor not "gentry", but they could have declined in social status over the intervening 200 years. Anne Folland nee Wilkins, the grandaughter of Jessie Vigars, has an old scrap of paper in their family Bible lising what appears to be the births of several Vigars in Launceston, Cornwall (10 miles or so distant from Lamerton) from 1640 until 1659. These correspond to baptisms recorded in the registers of St Mary Magdalene, Launceston. However, they differ in a few details, so do not appear to be the source of the information held by Anne. If this is so, where did this information originate? It could be something handed down within the family & point to a connection, or it could be something discovered & assumed to be of the family. Gilbert's Survey of the County of Cornwall Vol II pages 314-5 (1817) under "Vigurs of Launceston" shows the Arms of Vigurs & wife taken off their pew in Launceston Church (c.1654) ans adds "the representative of this family is said to be a Mr Vigurs a respectable tradesman in London." In the latter half of the 16th century there is a burial recorded in the Launceston registers of "Mr John Vigurs Maior". In the Visitation of Cornwall 1620 there is listed a Hugh Vigures on Launceston Town Council. We have demonstrated no link as yet between the Lamerton & Launceston families. Again they appear to be of higher social status. There is also a family of Viguers (and the usual variants) at least back to the 1620s in Tavistock. The earliest occupation recorded for them is a Cordwainer (Shoemaker) in 1757. These are the ancestors of a line of Vigurs extant today. Another family of Vigers also trace their roots to Tavistock and are possibly connected to this latter family. One of them, a Henry Vigers who was born in Surrey, was responsible for the building of Vigers Hall at Wilminstone to the north east of Tavistock. Again no connection has yet been demonstrated between these families and the Lamerton family. We believe that this family was prominent in trade in London in the early 1800s so may be connected to the Launceston family mentioned above. There are also researchers with whom we have been in contact who trace their roots back to a family of Viggers in Plymouth between at least 1790 & 1851. Again no connection has yet been discovered to the Vigars of North Brentor.